Man O' War Merchant Ships

Merchant shipping is of vital importance to the nations of the Old World.
As a result, navies spend much of their time protecting these ships
and safeguarding their vital cargoes and passage.

The introduction of merchant shipping to the Man O' War game provides for
a host of new scenarios and objectives. It also can make an excellent
backdrop to an entire campaign.

Rules:

Merchant ships use the damage template below.

Movement

Merchant ships are heavy, slow ships. To represent this, and to basically
bastardise the side which have them, I have given them a movement of 5".
This movement is under sail only (as they have no oars - see
Miniatures below)

Formation

Merchant ships are considered ships of the line, and as such, must follow
the formation rules.

Cargo Spaces

Each Merchant ship has five cargo spaces which can hold specific or unspecific
cargo. Examples of specific are:

Gold counters

Crew counters (the ship is a troop carrier, taking soldiers to/from war -
see Crew below)

Specified cargoes can only be held within the cargo spaces - that is, one
counter per space. If the space carrying a counter of cargo is hit,
then that cargo area and the cargo within it - gold, crew (troops), whatever
- is destroyed.

Unspecified cargo can be whatever you want it to be. As the name suggests,
it does not have to be specified, as long as both players are happy that
it really doesn't matter. This also means that there are no counters
on the ship templates to represent this cargo.

Crew

Merchant ships have a crew of three (3) (Sailors, cargo handlers and brave
passengers) for the purposes of boarding actions. Merchant ships are
not warships and will therefore NOT INITIATE boarding actions.

If acting as a troop carrier, crew counters in the cargo areas (hereafter
referred to as troops) may take part in the boarding/defending action.
Troops may not, however, be moved to the crew stack on any
ship's template. Troops are removed from the ship before crew
counters during boarding actions, and therefore, a ship will never be abandoned
and still have troops aboard.

Points and Battle Honours

Merchant ships are worth a whopping -300 points. No, that is not a
typo. They are negative 300 points so that the side which has them
can have some recompense for the disadvantages inherent to these ships.

For example, an Imperial fleet has a points total of 1000 which happens to
be the limit for the scenario. The Dark Elves have pulled together
a 1000 point fleet also. The scenario chosen is one which has Merchant
ships, and the Imperial fleet gets saddled with them. This means the
Empire gets to deduct 300 points, effectively giving them a 700 point fleet. Another squadron of Wolfships (for example) could then be added
to bring the total back to 1000 and give the Empire a bit more firepower.
Nifty, eh?

Battle Honours for Merchant ships are 8 each unless otherwise specified by
the players. Yes, this is high and I know that there isn't a lot of prestige
in sinking some poor old salty mariner with his equally shabby crew.
However, the sinking or capture of an enemy's war materiel can be
devastational to a war effort. These Battle Honours are an attempt
to reflect this damage.

Miniatures

Where do I buy Merchant ships??? Well any solution you can come up with is
fine, but I managed to get my hands on a squadron of Wolfships which I converted
in the following way:

Cut off the ram head from the prow. Once this is done, clean up the
front of the ship so that it doesn't look ridiculous.

Cut off each individual cannon from the forecastle and the aft deck.
Merchant ships have no guns and so it helps if it looks that way.
(This is the hardest part of the conversion)

Cut off the oars from each side. This should be done carefully (as
should everything else, come to think of it) in order not to damage any part
of the miniature.

Finally, paint them however you like (I chose a dull paint-job of shades
of brown) and make the masts in the usual way. Blank Bretonnian sails
are good, but again, it is up to you. Also, I chose to make plain coloured
pennants as it is easier than stuffing around with designs - Remember, the
plainer these things are, the less they look like they come from one race.
It makes them more useful. Please note that this advice is quite old now, and Man O war miniatures have been out of production for many years. I would now not recommend defiling the few remaining wonderful Man O war miniatures to make mere Merchant ships. Make your own from Balsa wood. Or green stuff.... Or something other than real Man O War ships.